Remember When A Dictionary Could Cause Outrage?

When it was published in 1961, Webster’s Third New International Dictionary “was widely denounced for what critics viewed as a lax admissions policy: it opened its columns to parvenus like ‘litterbug’ and ‘wise up,’ declined to condemn ‘ain’t,’ and illustrated its definitions with quotations from down-market sources like Ethel Merman and Betty Grable.”